What is the chiisai ojisan?
The chiisai ojisan (“little middle-aged man”) is a tiny person 10 to 20 cm tall who looks like a perfectly ordinary middle-aged man. He is said to be seen relaxing in a room, walking by someone’s pillow, or peeking out of the bushes in a park. Accounts vary: he runs away when noticed, or he talks to you.
Made famous by celebrity sightings
From the late 2000s into the 2010s, several celebrities said on TV that they had seen a chiisai ojisan, and he quickly became well known. The gap between the familiar figure of a middle-aged man and the strangeness of the sighting is enjoyed more than any fear, and some say seeing one brings good luck.
What is the little man really?
One theory is that he is a dream close to a hallucination, seen when falling asleep or just before waking (hypnagogic hallucinations). At the same time, legends of little people exist around the world, such as Japan’s korpokkur and Issun-boshi and Europe’s leprechaun, and the chiisai ojisan may be seen as a modern version of them.
